Handymen

My neighbor started building a deck on the back of his house.  Meanwhile, the surface-light on my range had burned out.  It took me a while to unscrew and remove the recessed light’s metal frame and glass cover, then pull the bulb out.  It wasn’t a screw-in bulb, it required a special quarter-turn twist and a gentle pull.  Very tricky.  I had no replacement bulb, so I went to the home store.  It took me twenty minutes in the store to find a replacement bulb that would fit. There were several wattage options: twenty watts, forty watts, and sixty, so I went home and looked at the bulb’s label.  The wattage numbers on the top of the glass bulb were in teeny-tiny print, and the heat had faded them.  I tried a magnifying glass, still couldn’t read it, gave up, and took the bulb to my neighbor, who has perfect vision.  He said it was twenty watts.  He was finishing his deck and building a gazebo out back.  I went back to the home store, bought the twenty-watt bulb, and took it home.  Trying to install the new bulb, I dropped the screws that fastened the light cover.  They fell down the crack between the range and the counter.  I had to get my neighbor to help pull the range out.  He was finishing the gazebo and was putting a coy pond with a waterfall in his side yard.  After we pulled the range out, he went back to work next door and I looked behind the range for the screws.  It was dark back there, so I grabbed a flashlight.  The flashlight was dead so I went back to the home store for batteries.  Looking at the battery display stand, I couldn’t remember if the flashlight required A, AA, AAA, C, or D cells, so I bought a package of each.  The total was ninety-eight dollars.  I went home, put the batteries in the flashlight, used it to find the screws behind the range, changed the bulb, and screwed the cover on.  I couldn’t push the range back in place by myself, so I asked my neighbor for help again.  He was finishing the coy pond and waterfall and starting to plant a tomato garden.  We put the range back in place.  He went home and I laid down to take a nap.  I was exhausted.  My back was sprained from moving the range.  I had blisters on my fingers from twisting bulbs, batteries and screwdrivers.  A couple hours later my neighbor rang my doorbell, waking me from my nap.  He invited me over for a cookout on his deck.  He had just finished assembling a gas grill and was grilling burgers.  And, best of all, the tomatoes from his garden were big and ripe, ready for slicing and laying on burgers.  I said yes, I could really use a burger after all that work.  I asked if I could make a dish to bring over.  He looked me straight in the eye for several seconds and said, “Chips.”